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Hatshepsut was a female ruler of Egypt. Her successors set out to destroy not only
memories of her but her very existence.

Hatshepsut
was born in 1508 B.C., the daughter of Pharaoh Thutmose I. Upon the death of Thutmose I, his son
Thutmose II became pharaoh. When Thutmose II died in 1479 B.C., his
two-year-old son Thutmose III became pharaoh, with his aunt Hatshepsut as his
regent. After a few years, Hatshepsut declared
herself pharaoh, dressing as a man, wearing a false beard strapped around her
head, and engaging in a massive building program unmatched for centuries.

Hatshepsut
erected four huge obelisks at Karnak, the enormous temple complex near modern
Luxor, two of which were 97 feet tall, each carved from a single block of
granite. She built the Red Chapel of
red quartzite to hold the barque (boat) priests used to transport the statue of
the god Amun around the complex. She
built the Palace of Ma’at, the Egyptian goddess of truth, justice and order,
one wall of which included an image of Hatshepsut being anointed pharaoh by the
gods.

When
Hatshepsut died in about 1458 B.C., Thutmose III again became pharaoh. He destroyed the Red Chapel, replacing it
with one honoring him. Believing that
Hatshepsut’s soul or ka could survive
in the afterlife in her images, Thurmose III (or perhaps his successors)
destroyed or obliterated images and statues of Hatshepsut, including her image
in the Palace of Ma’at. Successors
removed Hatshepsut’s name from lists of pharaohs. As a result, Hatshepsut’s extraordinary reign
was unknown until the twentieth century, when archaeologists reconstructed it
from images overlooked for destruction. The
Red Chapel at Karnak has been reconstructed from its original materials. The obliterated image in Karnak’s Palace of
Ma’at provides evidence of the still unknown motives of her successors to
destroy her afterlife existence.